Book excerpt: Volume 1, Weaving the Tangled Web: Military Deception in Large-Scale Combat Operations surveys twelve cases of MILDEC from World War I through Desert Storm focusing on how armies have successfully used preconceptions to either immobilize an opponent or force the expenditure of energy in unproductive directions. The case studies span the major wars of the twentieth-century from the perspectives of several great powers and offer both a primer for planners of military deception and a caution for all military personnel to remain constantly on guard for practitioners of this ancient art.